


Playing Games

by keelywolfe



Series: by any other name [91]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Underswap (Undertale), Angst, Established Relationship, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, M/M, Major Character Injury, Prejudice Against Monsters (Undertale), References to Collaring, Spicyhoney - Freeform, Underfell Papyrus (Undertale), Underfell Sans (Undertale), Underswap Papyrus (Undertale), Underswap Sans (Undertale), Undertale Monsters on the Surface, kustard - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21605776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keelywolfe/pseuds/keelywolfe
Summary: In the aftermath of Internal Disputes, Sans wasn't alone, not when his own thoughts could be haunting him.This wasn't how things were supposed to work, none of it, and there was nothing he would do but wait.
Relationships: Papyrus/Papyrus (Undertale), Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Series: by any other name [91]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1039829
Comments: 58
Kudos: 131





	Playing Games

* * *

The hospital chairs weren’t bad when it came to comfort, especially if you ran a little shorter in the pants than average. Not that it would’ve mattered much if they weren’t, Sans was well-trained in how to get to sleep in any and all places, knew exactly how to curl up in a folding chair for maximum comfort, no matter how hot or cold the climate got around him. 

Tonight, he was only too tired to sleep. That didn’t matter either, he’d been worse off plenty of times before. Only thing that mattered was that Paps was the one sleeping, and that was enough of a topsy-turvy to make Sans want to check they hadn’t missed an exit and were still in the right universe.

Probably were; from what Stretch said, when you first took a sideways step into another world, you could feel the wrongness of it in your bones. His bones felt shaky and sore, a fine litter of bruises all along his side where he’d hit the asphalt, but none of them were sending out Morse code squawking that the sky was falling, so they were all right there. Chicken Little would have to wait for another day, though maybe he’d check in with Stretch’s little flock, see how their bones were feeling--

Sans ran a weary hand down his face, smelling the lingering smoky char. Fuck, he was tired. 

In the hospital bed surrounded by machines and IV’s, Papyrus was lying perfectly still, and it was so fucking wrong to see. Even when he was sleeping Paps usually twisted and turned like he was training for the next Olympics. That little quirk cost Sans plenty of his own sleep when they were kids, nights huddled together for warmth beneath a threadbare blanket and all the while his baby bones bro tried to sleepwalk a watusi up his spine. 

Sometimes Sans missed that little kid.

The fancy suit Papyrus always wore when he was playing ambassador was gone, replaced by a hospital issue gown that would give a peepshow of his pelvis when he stood. His old clothes were past the dry cleaning stage, scorched all the way up his spine and yeah, that sight was gonna haunt Sans’s dreams a coupla times in the near future, as was the bitter taste of his own soul in his throat when he crawled over to him, all the dazed moans and screams around them as he clung to his brother, frantically checking him over. 

Yeah, let’s close that scene and set the memory box aside for those upcoming dreams to rifle through. No need to re-live the nightmare during the daytime, too. 

Sans shifted in the chair, pulling his bare, bony feet up onto the cushion. He hadn’t changed his own clothes yet; about all he’d managed was kicking off his shoes, his filthy socks draped over them like the peels of the world’s most disgusting fruit. His travel outfit was a lil’ different than his bros, a hoodie and shorts were about as fancy as he cared to get, maybe a pair of sunglasses if he was feeling particularly feisty about it. 

That getup was fine for someone on security team, something Papyrus very much was not, and Sans was planning to have a nice, long chat about that with him whenever his brother finally woke up. 

He was gonna wake up and Sans was gonna be here waiting when he did, thanks. 

As if magnetically drawn, a compass endlessly searching for north, Sans’s eye lights slid back to the bed towards his sleeping brother. His skull was still abnormally pale against the pillowcase, a revealing sign of magic drain despite the IV steadily dripping at his bedside. So very pale, except for the fine line of a fresh crack running down the side of his skull. Barely visible, really, someone who didn’t know any better might mistake it for a cranial suture.

Sans knew better.

It’d been a lot worse before Tori started in on it, crawling over to them through the rubble on the tarmac, ignoring shouts to stay down and her normally pristine white fur had been filthy, hands already caked with crimson marrow even as she reached out to Papyrus. The ugly wound Sans could barely stand to look at vanished beneath a thick green glow and that little crack was all that was left, a souvenir of Papyrus’s first trip to California. His brother had slumped to the ground after, those thready, pained moans fading. He’d been unconscious ever since.

He was gonna be fine; both Tori and Blue told Sans that over and over on the plane ride home, gonna be just fine. He was out cold was all, used up his magic down to the last dregs generating enough of a shield to cover himself and two other people besides. Right now it was nothing but a waiting game, Sans moving his pawn across the board until he landed on the ‘good morning, sunshine’ spot.

Just fine, sure, and Sans believed them. But he really wished he could roll doubles right now and speed up the process. 

Most of his thoughts were either being firmly suppressed or focused the still figure laying on the bed, but Sans did manage to spare one or two leftover balls from the ones he was mentally juggling to wondered tiredly how Stretch was holding up. He’d been eating shit sandwiches himself this weekend, and now honey boy was topping it off with big ol’ slice of disaster pie. At least Sans had the luxury of being with his bro from the get-go. Trying to picture how he’d feel knowing only the bare details of what’d happened sent a cold frisson through his soul. That was enough for him to offer sending Edge out in the first ambulance; at least he was with his brother, Edge and Blue were both stuck in limbo all the way home. 

Besides, he’d gotten to see plenty of the show on the flight home in the moments when Edge wavered into brief wakefulness. No wonder he never wanted to smoke weed or even drink much. They’d doped him to the gills without mercy, and now Sans was gonna have to live with an eternity of regret that the loss of his phone meant he didn’t get a chance to record Edge massacring a heartfeltly sung rendition of ‘I Want It That Way’. 

Since Tori and Blue were no fun at all and refused to do it either, seemed the best option was to send Edge out and hope Stretch got a front row seat to the second act. 

That show had been a helluva lot better than the inflight movie Edge’d given them on the way out. Stoic and distant since the second he’d gotten on the plane, a fuckton more so than usual. Wasn’t until Blue snuck in a whisper to Sans what was up that he got it. Anniversary tomorrow, yeah, husband back home while he got stuck playing lead babysitter with Sans as backup ‘cause Red was off saving the world or catching an early bird sale, some bullshit, anyway. 

(not thinking about red, better not to, better to not)

Stretch probably pitched a bitchfit about Edge tagging along without him and Sans hadn’t registered to vote in this election, but he was gonna go with Stretch as his candidate. There was no good reason he could think of to make Stretch stay home past paperwork and pissiness, and the fact that Blue thought his Papy staying home was the better choice told him all he needed to about that. 

They’d been Aboveground for a few years now and Stretch was nowhere near as bad off as he’d been back when they’d first shown up on the doorstep back in Snowdin. He’d gone the good boy route, got himself a therapist and everything. He was happy, anyone could see that, and HP issues aside, it was ‘bout time to cut the apron strings to let Stretch mess up his own cooking. 

Edge was better about it than Blue, but looked like he was still trying to play sous chef ‘cause Stretch wasn’t on the plane. Their fearless leader had put up a good front, but any moron could see he was upset, and Sans wasn’t just any idiot on the street. Whatever his reasoning, Edge obviously wasn’t happy about leaving his honey behind.

Welp, Sans had a feeling Edge wasn’t super eager to add Stretch to the roster now. Not after spending some quality time laying on the crumbled tarmac waiting for a stretcher, banged up and bandaged the best they could manage on the fly while the Human side of the contingency ran around squawking out orders, getting everything on lockdown. Trying to keep everything on the down-low until they could get a proper press release in order, yeah, that was the right procedure. 

Sans still didn’t have a single qualm about slipping Edge that phone so he could let Stretch know he was okay. ‘Course he’d probably scared him shitless the way he started rambling on like it was his deathbed confession hour instead of just saying ‘alive and kicking’, oops, but eh, couldn’t win ‘em all. 

Sans wasn’t winning a lot of ‘em lately.

The stack of blankets were tucked around Papyrus with generous care, but Sans got up and went over to him, anyway, smoothing the imaginary wrinkles in covers. His hands were beneath the blanket, the better to keep them toasty warm. Probably for the best, it was bad enough having to look at his skull, that single ragged crack. If he had to keep looking at his bro’s bruised, battered knuckles, Sans might go nuts. 

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It was his duty to play big bro, his, he’d taken that on years ago while he was still in his own striped shirt, his very first job. He was the one in Security, he was the one who was supposed to fucking protect, and even if Sans thought maybe he’d fucked that up a time or two before, suspected that there was a memory he didn’t possess, a

(reset)

past that wasn’t theirs. But he’d been keeping up their end of the bargain since his bro decided to be an Ambassador and Paps wasn’t supposed to break it, he fucking wasn’t—

The door creaking made Sans jerk, heat rushing to his fingertips in a heady blurt of magic for an attack that stopped forming the moment he saw who it was. He took a long, slow breath, shaking away his exhausted agitation the best he could, cause he was going to need every wit that hadn’t been blown away in the explosion to deal with this. 

Red was standing in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. The light pouring in behind him cast him in shadow except for the smoldering glow of his eye lights burning out from his sockets. 

Sans only ignored his awful horror movie impression and wandered back to his chair, crawling up to settle on the cushion with a weary sigh. 

"you done with skulking around trying not to talk to me?" Sans asked. He didn't mean to sound as pissy as he did, but did Red really think he wouldn't notice? On the plane, outside the ambulance, even here, Red'd been all over, watching but not getting close. 

No answer came, no sardonic comeback, no angry snarl. Red stepped into the room and closed the door behind him with disturbing care. Probably only playing at kindness for Papyrus’s sake, but something about his expression was unnerving, the lines of his face laid out in a way that Sans didn’t know. 

He came close to the chair without reaching, only stood there, hands visibly fisted in his pockets. Crimson eye lights resting on Sans, but more like Red was looking _through_ , like Sans wasn’t even there and Red’s gaze was laser-focused on the wall behind him. 

“came to tell you i’m taking off for a while,” Red said, every word filled with deliberate indifference, “dunno how long.”

Sans only nodded. “yeah. thought you might.”

“wanted to see if you’d keep an eye on that fucking cat of mine.” Again, nothing but cool detachment, Red speaking to the wall and expecting answers. 

He made no mention of asking Edge and Sans didn’t either. “sure, why not, i could use a few more scrapes for my collection. maybe i can trip over him on the stairs, add a few broken bones to the tab.”

There, a veritable hit; Red winced visibly, the distance in his gaze wavering. It was almost fascinating, really, watching with his own detached interest as Red tried to force it back. Must be a sign of his own shaken control, all of it unraveling, snapping into its proper place as he actually _looked_ at Sans. 

Sans had a pretty good idea what Red was seeing. The force of the explosion had thrown them all to the ground in spite of any shields, leaving behind a nice collection of mottled bruises and bloody scrapes to share around. His own pain had been secondary, unnoticed until they’d been shoved back on the plane for a ride straight back home. He’d been sitting next to Paps when Tori came over, watching the metronome precision of the rise and fall of his rib cage like only the force of his will was keeping his brother breathing. 

The cold wetness against his skull had stung and it was only then that he noticed his own hurts. He’d sat there and concentrated on keeping Papyrus breathing, let Tori gently clean him up the best that she could. 

So he didn’t have any illusions about what kind of eye candy he was right now. Another note of interest that Red didn’t seem to be able to look away, the minute flicker of his eye lights moving as they traced over those bruises and scrapes. 

“i need to go,” Red repeated, but that indifference was wavering, seeping away, leaving behind something that was almost pleading. Huh. How about that. “i gotta. this is my fault. i’ve gotta—"

“listen to the ego on you,” Sans snorted. “even you can't know everything.”

“no, you don't fucking _get_ it.” Shattered desperation, like nothing Red ever showed. Seemed like those walls Red kept up weren’t quite as impervious as Sans always thought; words were spilling out of him, vomited out in pained rush. “i didn't have shit going on here. i didn't come along on this trip because i knew you'd go without me and i…i wanted you away. for a couple days. wanted some time to get my head on straight and i didn’t give a shit who i pissed off to get it, i—"

Yeah, Sans could believe that. Fucked over his own brother and Stretch, and why not? It was only to get out of a Security detail that would’ve left him sharing a hotel room with Sans, left them out in the open in front of everyone. Made them obvious in a way that somehow Red didn’t think they’d been before, fooling no one but himself, but it was a lie Red somehow needed. 

Knowing that was a different sort of bruise, on his soul instead of his bones, and every word out of Red was giving it a rough press. It was satisfying in a strange way, to know Red was panicking over him, made him want to feel it again. 

"all right,” Sans said calmly.

"no, it ain't all right!" Red snarled, his voice cracking, breaking, breathing too heavily. "if I hadn't've fucked off--"

"then you would've been there instead of edge and it would all have happened the same way." He felt oddly serene, floating in his own peculiar calm. "you're one person. even you can't be everywhere and know everything. ‘sides, if that’s your fault, this is mine.” He flung his hand out like an attack at the hospital room, towards his brother lying unconscious in front of him. “’m getting sloppy, should’ve reacted faster.”

Red twitched, stepping closer, grasping that line of thought with eager gratitude, “reacted to what? how did my brother know? toriel ain’t sure and neither was blue—"

“intent.” Sans shivered, remembering the prickle of it washing over him, virulent hate that came a bare second too late for him to react. The memory of it made him remember something else, a delirious question forgotten in the aftermath, “didn’t think edge could beat me when it came to sensing intent.”

Red waved that off. “he’s been practicing ever since andy got turned into a pincushion outside that chinese place. what else?”

Of course he was, Edge probably spent his lunch hour wandering the streets to see how much hate he could pick up, that was a filling meal. “it was coming from the driver. edge was a lot closer to the car, he must’ve felt it before i did. he yelled for everyone to get down but by then, paps already had me face first on the asphalt.” He shrugged, trying not to think too deeply of the wash of vicious heat, the sound of it, the screams, fuck, all the _screams_ — “after that, it gets a little explody. i can still hear it a little, it’s like listening to a seashell lodged in my head. doc said it might take a day or two for the echo to fade out.”

“that it?” Red’s gaze bore into him.

“that’s all i’ve got,” Sans drawled sourly. He turned in the seat, lounging with deliberate casualness, his legs hanging over the arm. “that’s the shit, the whole shit, and nothing but the shit. so that happened and our bros got hurt, yeah, but they’re gonna be fine. so, now, you wanna take off and go headhunting? you go on ahead. play your little game, start following your clues. just remember after paps wakes up and i can see he’s okay? i’m coming to find you.”

Red had been nodding along and Sans could see the moment realization bled through, the indignant rasp as he snapped out, “the fuck you are!”

“the fuck i’m not,” Sans countered, tauntingly. He ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting his own sweat, the bitterness of smoky residue as he goaded, “how are you gonna stop me? ask edge to chase me down while he plays hop along cassidy on some crutches?” Fury was sparking in Red’s eye lights like a firecracker as Sans went on with fractured glee, “he’ll be a coupla weeks recovering, you know. even you harping on him to get up and play protector ain’t gonna change that. gonna tattle on me to asgore, gonna lock me up? tie me to your bed?” Sans tapped a finger against his cheek bone pensively, a mockery of thinking, “or maybe i won’t go after you at all. maybe i’ll see about playing a little on my own.”

Ah, that, that right there. Sans could _feel_ the impotent fury rolling off of Red, about the only time he couldn’t get it up, hands flexing as if he wished there was something in them and for a distant moment, he thought Red might actually attack him and wouldn’t that make for an interesting problem to explain.

Then it was gone, all that anger and frustration swallowed into nothingness. Interesting how Red managed to break without so much as changing expression. Must be a gift. 

“you win,” Red said abruptly. 

“we playin’ something?” Sans asked lightly, 

“only with our lives. ain’t like anything important.” There was a sharp prick of frustrated anger in that, wasn’t all gone, then, only banked. A point Red proved by stalking forward to take Sans’s chin in two sharp fingers, yanked it up. Crimson eye lights searched Sans’s face and he couldn’t begin to wonder what they hoped to find. “you even know what you’re getting into here?”

“i’ve been fucking you for over a year.”

“i ain’t talking about fucking.” Those searing eye lights pierced deeply into him, crawling over the depths of his soul. “do you _know?_ ”

Deliberately, Sans lifted his chin more, exposing the bones of his cervical vertebrae. Red’s gaze dropped, lingered over them with hypnotic weight, and his fingers followed, coiling around Sans’s throat like a metaphor. 

“if you like it, then you shoulda put a collar on it,” Sans said, soft and singsong. “i’ve been fucking you for over a _year_ , fucking around three times that, you think i don’t know? collar me, claim me. may as well, i ain’t going anywhere, anyways.”

Red shuddered, lurching forward another step and his fingers tightening convulsively, not quite painlessly. “collar you? like you’d be fucking obedient.”

“from what i saw of you wearing one, i always figured the obedience part was an optional add-on. besides, at least i’m housebroken.”

The thin fingers around his throat tightened again, so very close to choking and Sans only shivered, yearning into that grip even as Red whispered with low, virulent intensity, “should’ve known i couldn’t keep dodging you forever.”

Red leaned in, but not for a kiss. His mouth was suddenly hot on Sans’s collarbone, dragging over it, uncaring of the sweat and filth coating him. Sharp teeth nicked tantalizingly against bone and Sans couldn’t hold back a cry, edged with a near sob because he wasn’t supposed to get this, he wasn’t, wasn’t supposed to have this suddenly thrust into his lap like a gift. His magic gave stirring an unfortunate try, but he was thankfully too tired to demo how much his psyche was absolutely going for the sweet threat in that touch. 

"i wanna to keep you," Red muttered, mostly to himself, something like desperation curling around every word. Sans answered anyway, mumbling mindlessly.

"okay. okay, yeah."

"wanna keep anyone else from touching you,” whispered against him, a promise, a threat, Sans didn’t know. Red’s tongue was winding around his clavicles, sharp fingertips tearing Sans’s t-shirt, exposing more. “wanna put my collar you, warn the whole world that you're mine."

"yeah," Sans breathed brokenly. His hands move of their own accord, not bothering to ask for permission as they clutch at Red’s shoulders, blunt fingertips digging into the leather of his coat with creaking force. 

"That sounds very romantic and potentially disturbing, but may I ask if you could do that in your bedroom and not here in front of me?"

Sans came pretty fucking close to kicking Red to the floor as he jerked up to see his brother’s sockets open, blinking at them owlishly. It wasn’t even a thought to scramble down and go to him; reaching for Papyrus was as automatic as drawing a breath. His brother reached back and if his hands were shaking a little, if there was something tremulous and almost fragile in that touch, Sans didn’t care. 

His brother was awake and reaching for him, pulling him up on the bed and into his arms. 

“Hush, there’s no need to cry,” Papyrus scolded gently, but he held on to Sans with enough force to get his bruises singing out an Ava Maria. “I’m perfectly all right and even if I’m not, you are, so that’s fine.”

“that is so not fine, paps, it is completely the opposite of fine,” Sans wiped away embarrassing flood of tears, sniveling humiliatingly into his sleeve even as Papyrus flailed and tried to reach for the box of Kleenex on the bedside table. “me and red are the ones working in the security department, we—”

He turned back to the chair, trailing off when he found it empty. 

Well, shit. 

“know something, bro?” Sans sighed out, even as he settled into his brother’s arms. “that whole vanishing thing is fucking annoying when i’m not the one doing it.”

Papyrus smoothed a hand down his spine, more gentle than not, and if he had an inkling of what he just interrupted, he was kind enough not to ask. “Never fear, brother, you are always fucking annoying whether you’re trying or not.”

Probably true. Hearing his brother swear was always enough to give his soul a seizure, even if he knew Papyrus only did it to get a rise out of him. He needed to go find one of the docs, let him know Paps was awake and there were probably tests that needed to be run, x-rays maybe, who the fuck knew. 

It could wait a minute. Right now, the only place his soul wanted to be was right here. 

But later, he thought maybe he had some dice to roll. Some asshole in a stupid hat once said the game was afoot and now that he knew there was a chance? 

Sans was playing to win. 

-finis-

**Author's Note:**

> [Please go check out the gorgeous are hj_skb made for this story!](https://twitter.com/hj_skb/status/1200946642037460992)


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